Ends tomorrow

The Lower Mainland’s newest online marketplace will open on Monday, April 28, when LikeItBuyItVancouver.com begins previewing a limited-time sale of everything from household goods to consumer electronics to cruises, travel, cars, gift cards and personal services.

If Black can back his refinery proposal, it could change the Northern Gateway game

Raw bitumen and diluted bitumen are displayed in jars as newspaper publisher David Black speaks about his proposal to build a refinery in Kitimat, B.C., to refine oil from the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, during a news conference in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday August 17, 2012.

Photograph by: Darryl Dyck
, CP

Of course there will be tough questions, and it will take time to find answers that must go well beyond the initial assurances volunteered by the proponents.

But the proposal by B.C. businessman David Black to build a $13-billion refinery to process heavy crude oil from Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline before it’s shipped by tanker to Asia or beyond is worth some time and effort to probe the details. It finally gives open-minded British Columbians something more to chew on than the he-said, she-said exchanges between the alarmist opponents who see certain disaster at every river crossing and offshore rock, and the bland assurances from proponents trying to defend — or maybe it’s ignore — a spotty safety record.

Two big questions are whether Black’s company, Kitimat Clean Ltd., which has no experience in the oil business, can find so much money, and whether can it satisfy stakeholders and regulators that it will be able, as promised, to build a world-scale refinery with state-of-the-art safety and environmental standards.

If the company can’t pull off these two challenges, then it’s back to square one. My best guess is it won’t matter then what thoughtful analysis reveals because loud politics will prevail and, after a long and bitter fight, the pipeline proposal will fail.

But if Kitimat Clean can deliver what it says, the game changes. This would be a giant step toward clearing two big hurdles to Northern Gateway — valid worries about potentially catastrophic consequences of a ship accident, and the issue of compensating B.C. for risks associated with the pipeline.

Safety would improve because a spill of refined petroleum — diesel, gasoline and aviation fuel — would do far less harm than raw bitumen. Nasty impacts would be confined to the immediate area of the spill, and fouled water and shoreline would start recovering within days as the spill evaporated. Gooey bitumen, by contrast, would last indefinitely and spread widely.

As for economic considerations, Black speaks of 6,000 construction jobs over five years, and then 3,000 permanent jobs, not to mention massive new tax revenue for all levels of government. This is a huge carrot — too large to be ignored by people in B.C.’s north, including some, though probably not all, the first nations who have dug in against Enbridge’s plan.

Nor will every non-native opponent be swayed, but many may be. An Angus Reid poll released early this month shows that while hard-line Enbridge opponents out-number committed supporters by about five to one, a small majority of British Columbians — 51 per cent — are open to potentially changing their minds.

But the survey didn’t determine what weight those “softer” opponents give to various concerns. Is it mainly the insufficient benefits for B.C., which Black’s proposal goes a long way to address? Is it the prospect of a marine catastrophe, which would also be greatly diminished? Or does the pipeline itself and the risk it creates for salmon streams and wilderness outweigh all potential benefits?

Black’s proposal doesn’t deal with getting the heavy oil from Alberta to Kitimat. That 1,177-kilometre challenge belongs to Enbridge alone, and it’s stumbling.

Part of what ties Black’s proposal to Enbridge’s fate is first nations support — or the lack of it.

Black touched on this issue and, to be fair, it’s too early to expect him to be able to do much more than express his good intentions. But while he may be right to believe he can win over the two Kitimat-area bands that his proposal will directly affect, the Haisla and the Kitselas, Enbridge has many more to deal with — and fewer potential benefits to offer — along the length of the line further east. This could be a deal-breaker.

Not to mention the huge challenges of winning environmental approval for any kind of refinery in a country that hasn’t built one for nearly 30 years, the petroleum industry’s cool reception to Black’s idea, and the inevitable energetic opposition of well-funded activists who can be counted on to oppose anything smelling of oil or, especially, “tarsands.”

So there’s a long, long way to go before this can fly. Still, the distance looks quite a bit shorter than it did just a day earlier.

Raw bitumen and diluted bitumen are displayed in jars as newspaper publisher David Black speaks about his proposal to build a refinery in Kitimat, B.C., to refine oil from the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, during a news conference in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday August 17, 2012.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.